September 9, 1994 | JUDY PASTERNAK and MICHAEL ROSS and BILL STEIGERWALD, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

A USAir jetliner roared out of a clear evening sky and hurtled nose first into a wooded hill late Thursday about a half-mile from a small shopping center near this Pennsylvania steel town, killing all 131 people on board. It was the deadliest airplane crash in the United States in seven years. The plane, a Boeing 737 en route from Chicago to Pittsburgh, had been scheduled to continue on to West Palm Beach, Fla. It shattered on impact.

Hoping to recognize the voices of their loved ones who died Sept. 11 on United Flight 93, family members have convinced the government to let them hear the cockpit tape of the hijacked plane's last moments, when passengers struggled to seize control of the aircraft.

Since he moved west to Cypress, research engineer David D. Garber liked to surprise his parents on special occasions, popping up unexpectedly on their doorstep in North Canton, Ohio. So on Thursday when a conference in Chicago ended early, Garber hopped on USAir Flight 427 to Pittsburgh, an hour's drive from his hometown. He was turning 40 on Friday and wanted to spend it with family. But on the morning of Garber's birthday, his mother, Martha, got a telephone call from USAir.

A military plane crashed in the woods during an air show Sunday at Willow Grove Naval Air Station, killing the two people aboard, authorities said. The F-14 Tomcat was taking part in one of the final performances at the Willow Grove 2000 Sounds of Freedom show when it went down at 4:43 p.m. in a wooded area near houses outside the base, which is 15 miles north of Philadelphia. The fighter, based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, Va.

Among those killed in the crash of USAir Flight 427 was a family of five, who were returning from the funeral of a 9-year-old relative in Chicago. "It's hard to believe that no one is coming home next door," neighbor Bruce Brindle said Friday. He had lived next to Earl and Kathleen Weaver and their three children for the last eight years in the comfortable Pittsburgh suburb of Upper St. Clair. "Their children were best friends with our three children," he said.

A single-engine Cessna 172 plunged into a private backyard in Ferguson Township on Saturday and all four people aboard were killed. Authorities said no one on the ground was injured and the cause of the crash was being investigated.

A charter jet bringing gamblers back to the Pennsylvania Poconos from Atlantic City, N.J., plunged Sunday into the foggy hills just a few miles from their home. The pilot, co-pilot and 17 passengers died when the 1988 BA-33 Jetstream crashed into a densely wooded mountaintop near a cleared corridor of land that ran above an underground natural gas pipeline.

Two small airplanes collided in flight Sunday and seven people were killed, moments after one of the planes had dropped sky divers at an airport festival, authorities said. One person on the ground was injured. The planes collided about a mile southwest of Queen City Airport, which was hosting a hot-air balloon festival, said Bill Vogel, area supervisor for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Evidence recovered from the wreck of USAir Flight 427 cast doubt Tuesday on the theory that the jet crashed because its right engine was thrown into reverse. Federal investigators determined the devices that engage an engine's thrust reversers were not deployed on the right side of the Boeing 737-300, suggesting the engine was operating normally. The devices, called locking actuators, determine the position of other actuators that control the thrust reversers, a braking mechanism.

An Eastern Airlines jet bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, was delayed for more than six hours Wednesday after one of its engines stalled while taxiing and a cargo door failed to close properly, officials said. While the Lockheed L-1011 was being repaired, several passengers boarded planes to Miami for connecting flights to San Juan.

Investigators on Monday were looking into whether fuel problems caused both engines to fail aboard a charter plane that crashed, killing all 19 people aboard. But the probe was hampered because the cockpit voice recorder was not working at the time. The National Transportation Safety Board investigators searched for clues in the wreckage after Sunday's crash of the Executive Airlines twin-engine turboprop, which was carrying 17 passengers home from a gambling trip to Atlantic City, N.J.

A charter jet bringing gamblers back to the Pennsylvania Poconos from Atlantic City, N.J., plunged Sunday into the foggy hills just a few miles from their home. The pilot, co-pilot and 17 passengers died when the 1988 BA-33 Jetstream crashed into a densely wooded mountaintop near a cleared corridor of land that ran above an underground natural gas pipeline.

Investigators will use two jets in an experiment to try to determine whether another plane's turbulence could have caused the crash of USAir Flight 427, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sunday. Investigators agree that the jet's rudder moved sharply to the left, sending the plane into a steep bank before it fell nose-first to the ground. But they're not sure why the rudder moved.

In solving a crime, prosecutors must not only identify the suspect, they must explain how he did it. In figuring out what caused the crash of USAir's Flight 427 last September, federal investigators must do the same thing: not only identify their prime suspect--now revealed as the Boeing 737's rudder--but explain what might have caused the rudder to deflect fully to the left, sending the plane into a spiraling dive that killed all 132 people on board.

Although the turbulent wake from another airliner may have affected it momentarily, USAir's Flight 427 probably was hurled to the ground last Sept. 8 by its own control system, experts testified at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing in Pittsburgh. George Green, a NASA engineer, testified that the Boeing 737 entered the swirling vortices generated by a Delta Airlines Boeing 727 four miles ahead as the 737 was preparing to land at Pittsburgh.

Usually by now in the investigation of a plane crash, the National Transportation Safety Board has come up with something telling. It may be a readout from a "black box" recorder that provides crucial information on an airliner's last seconds of flight, or an important clue gleaned from a large chunk of wreckage, or detailed testimony from a survivor, or conclusions that can be drawn from an earlier, similar crash. That hasn't happened in the case of the Sept. 28 crash of USAir Flight 427.

A pilot crash-landed his single-engine plane upside down in a field Saturday but escaped serious injury because he was wearing his seat belt, authorities said. The plane suddenly turned upside down just before crashing, said Carol Hardy, a state police dispatcher. She said the pilot walked away from the wreckage and did not require medical attention. Authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.

President Bush joined much of official Washington for a memorial service that recalled Sen. John Heinz as a rare politician who refused to become jaded. The Pennsylvania Republican "really believed he could make the world a better place," said Sen. Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.), a prep school friend of Heinz's. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle were among the nearly 2,000 people who attended the service at the Washington Cathedral.

Air traffic control recordings of the USAir jetliner that crashed outside Pittsburgh, Pa., were so gruesome that federal officials took the rare step Friday of barring release of some sections of tape. On Sept. 8, the USAir 737-300 rolled to the left and plunged about 6,000 feet into a wooded hillside, killing all 132 people on board.

At least three passengers on an earlier leg of USAir Flight 427 complained of strange noises before the jet took off on its final, fatal flight, a lawyer representing victims' families said. Philip H. Corboy, a lawyer suing USAir on behalf of some of the families, said reports of complaints were filed Thursday in depositions in federal court. The three passengers said they had heard an odd noise during the Sept. 8 flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Chicago, he said.